After a semi comfortable, semi uncomfortable sleep in my car due to the thunderstorms that came through the night before, I woke up parked directly across the street from the Gunnison County Sherrif's house. The first thing I did was to check my front windshield for a ticket. Luckily there wasn’t one so I quickly repositioned everything in my car and hit the road.
Shortly after leaving Gunnison, the scenery changed from large mountains and tall trees to smaller hills and short, stubby trees, bushes and grasses. This region had a desert like feel to it. I drove along the Blue Mesa Reservoir, Colorado’s largest body of water and the largest Kokanee Salmon fishery in the United States. If I had known that at the time I might have stopped and dropped in a line?
From within about 2 hours from Telluride, I saw the outline of the San Juan mountain range. Beautiful, tall, jagged, snow covered peaks could be seen from the distance. I drove through the town of Montrose, still 1.5 hours from Telluride but it was the most populated (~15,000) town I’ve come across since leaving Colorado Springs and the Denver area. Montrose has very affordable housing, decent conveniences and from the look of it, an ok jobs outlook. But, it’s still 1.5 hours from Telluride.
The views of the San Juan Mountains just got better and better the closer I got to Telluride. There is not much around Telluride for miles and miles. From the moment I arrived, I knew this is the type of place that would be my ultimate destination. The quaint town of Telluride is nestled down in a valley with tall, nearly vertical mountains surrounding it. This is what I think of when I picture the perfect ski town in my head. 
I walked around town for a few hours to get a feel for the layout. Its Main Street was lined bars and restaurants, recreational outfitters, clothing stores and the typical resort souvenir shop. People were out and about even though there was a light drizzle from above. Although there was some snow on some of the peaks, there was no snow to report on the ski hills. The gondola was running in the background, likely taking bikers to the top for some downhill action. I would classify the entire town, a ski in/ski out town. Affordability in Telluride is another story. 
Intrigued at how one might manage to make a living in here, I stopped in to one of the mountaineering stores and started a conversation with a guy behind the counter. He said that it basically takes 3 jobs just to get by. Jobs are hard to find and it’s usually a hotel job or something in the food and beverage industry. However, even though you have to sacrifice the means needed to make a living; this would be living at its finest! If my bank account had an additional one or two zero’s tacked on at the end, I would have already started the process of changing my address. I would have stayed in town a little longer but there was another thunderstorm on its way so I grabbed two local newspapers and headed for my car.
I set the GPS for Moab, Utah and started driving. Most of the way there, the landscape was desolate but soon I was in the middle of some large canyons. I don’t think I saw more than 20 cars in the 3-4 hours that it took, and lucky for me, I had a full gas tank because there were no gas stations either. The drive was nice and I was treated to some very energetic lightning storms. I arrived in Moab, UT around 9:30pm. Immediately I was back in civilization and I liked it. It had started raining again, so I found a quiet, dark street, rearranged my car and went to sleep.
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